1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of athletic equipment, and more particularly to a novel sleeve for placement on the thumb of a player when a bowling ball is tossed or delivered by the player towards a set of bowling pins to gain better control of the ball.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
It has been a conventional practice to control the throw or toss of a bowling ball by a player through the use of soft, pliable inserts which are placed into selected finger holes in a bowling ball. The inserts are not worn by the player. By the employment of pads or wedge-shaped portions within the insert, the frictional engagement is increased between the fingertip of the player and the ball at certain times during the bowler's swing whereby the ultimate path of travel of the ball is controlled. In the use of such inserts, the pads or wedge-shaped portions must not interfere with the release of the bowling ball at the end of the player's toss or throw.
Some attempts have been made to employ pads and wedge-shaped portions which are shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,585,230; 5,123,644; 5,007,640 and 4,890,836. Although the disclosure of inserts for finger holes in bowling balls exists in prior patents, difficulties and problems have been encountered which stem largely from the fact that the player's choice of insert must be selected from a plurality of inserts having different pad locations or pad thicknesses. Also, there is more to ball control than the placement or use of pads, such as the shape of the entrance leading into the insert. Those disclosed are limited to round entrances leading into the pad or wedge-shaped thickened portions and round holes are not necessarily effective when the player is attempting to achieve power lifting, requirement for extra rotation or desires to maintain fingers within the insert for extended rotation. Also, the conventional insert grips are employed as single-side or ended inserts or grips without the option to employ the opposite side or end of the grip for a different feel or control purpose. Therefore, a multiplicity of individual inserts is required to be at the disposal of the bowler so that he may select a particular insert. This requires the bowler to procure and maintain the multiplicity of inserts and the loss of the inserts is quite common. Comfort is also important to the bowler and being limited to one shape is restrictive and not comfortable to all bowlers.
Prior finger inserts are not used for the player's thumb and there in particular as there is no known thumb insert on the market that is two-sided offering the player with a choice of different bores. Prior finger inserts are used on selected fingers of the player while the same inserts are not used on the player's thumb. For thumb usage, a sleeve is envisaged rather than an insert.
Therefore, a long-standing need has existed to provide a novel sleeve for a bowler's thumb which permits the bowler to select either end of the sleeve for thumb insertion and which provides more than one entrance shape to the sleeve bore that may be selected for comfort and ball control. Such a sleeve should take into account ball control purposes such as power lift shape and grip extension for longer or extended ball rotation purposes. To eliminate the necessity of having a multiplicity of different available sleeves to choose from, the various end openings and pad options may be combined into a single sleeve. The player can alter the sleeve by removing undesired portions of the sleeve in order to suit himself.